


just might've tapped into your mind and soul (you can't be sure)

by quentintarrantino



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 18:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1437751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quentintarrantino/pseuds/quentintarrantino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your vision has always been invaded by flecks of red, from the blood under your fingernails to the hair on the head napping beside you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just might've tapped into your mind and soul (you can't be sure)

Your vision has always been invaded by flecks of red, from the blood under your fingernails to the hair on the head napping beside you.

The jagged angry color that drips down your father’s face, pieces of glass embedded in his skin and you clench your fists and grind your jaw because you can feel freedom grasping for your fingertips and all you have to do is reach a little further.

Red is the sunburn on the pale shoulders of a wiry boy who stands a few inches taller than you, sitting on a roof in the hot Chicago summer, his mouth a crooked line that makes you want to kiss him but you never do and you hate yourself for it.

The shade of lipstick the woman you call your wife wears, she kisses the forehead of your son and it leaves a smudge.

Your hands are dirty, rough to the touch. No one has ever wanted to hold them until you laid in bed next to him and he quietly traced his own white fingers against yours. Red is the sting of the words you hurl at him when you get out of his bed and pull your jeans on, telling him to keep his filthy fucking appendages to himself.

Red is the burning you feel in your chest when he turns around and the only thing you can whisper is  _Don’t_. You can’t choke anything else out, and he’s gone and you can’t look at yourself in the mirror. Red is the cuts on your knuckles from punching walls all night long.

//

Brown is the dirt caked on your cheek when you watch him walk away, your body hunched on the ground. Dark, deep, and rich, it's coffee and bleary eyes when you try to hide your swollen lip from your sister in the morning because you're trying to forget the boy you loved socked you in the face for trying to hold his hand. 

It's the stray strands of hair falling in his eyes, the mud that squishes under your boots as the snow melts and the quick and careless crushing of mouths together in an alleyway three blocks down the street from school because he doesn't want anyone to see you. Brown is the stains in the carpet of his room, it's shame and the stifling cigarette smoke he exhales towards the sky at night. 

The gnarled wood of the bar your father drank his life away in, it's your eyes fixed intently on it while you think over every single exchange in your head and desperation seethes beneath your skin. Brown is the warmth behind your eyelids when you hear him say your name, sweet, it's like chocolate the way he melts on your tongue. 

//

Red is the first color of the rainbow, it's the burst blood vessel in your father's eye when he charges. You can take a beating, you could take twenty beatings, but it's not you he lunges for. 

Red is the fear that chokes you as you fight with everything you can to protect the one thing you hate that you love so much. It's the way he peels your skin away layer by layer until it's muscle and sinew, raw and tender and you let him. He lays waste to every part of you and instinct whispers in your ear at night that it won't be this godforsaken city that breaks your back and leaves you to die, it will be him. 

Your instinct never lies to you. 

//

Brown is safe, it wraps you tight and doesn't let you go. Mickey Milkovitch isn't brown, he's the color of a black hole and his heart is ten shades darker. His teeth are crooked and his hands falter when they touch your face because he's wrapped his entire being around you and against your better judgement you're getting pulled in.

Dying has never made you feel more alive.

//

Red is cruel, it rakes its nails across your flesh. Ian Gallagher isn't red, he's the gentle tones of the sunrise, full of hope with eyes big enough to swallow you whole. His freckles splatter across his face and you want to tie him to your headboard and count every single one.

He presses his lips to yours and the chasm within you shrinks just a bit. 


End file.
